This is a Honeymoon? A day in our life during this phase.

When children (or adults) are diagnosed with Type 1 they will sometimes experience what is known as a honeymoon phase. Once Blaine began receiving insulin via injections, his pancreas remembered “oh, I have some insulin too”. Blaine was diagnosed before he was in DKA or in an “emergency” situation such as coma or seizing. So, I had assumed that maybe he did have a few insulin producing beta cells left that his body had not yet destroyed (type 1= autoimmune condition). If only there were a way to get to his beta cells and clone them!...?

Although, this brings back a memory, so I digress. In college I was in an honors biology class with 12 other students. We were replicating DNA. It was a whole semester worth of work in the labs. I was the ONLY one who failed to have my DNA replicate. It seems I treat science like I treat my baking. Who needs to measure? Seriously, with the DNA we were working with mirco-measurements. Would it really matter if I was .001 mm off? The answer, apparently, was yes. And the answer to whether sugar cookies will rise without baking powder is no, as my children like to point out every Christmas since the year I didn’t use any because it wasn’t on hand.

Back to the honeymoon. Probably a month after Blaine began receiving exogenous insulin (insulin outside his body via injection) we noticed that he needed less and less. His food ratios were corrected from 1 unit per 15 carbs to 1 unit per 45 carbs. That has since been readjusted to 1unit: 30 carbs. We also noticed that anytime we had to do a correcting does (use the formula BG-100/correction factor) he tended to drop quickly.

The past few days have been full on hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic days. Because Blaine was in the 200’s the other morning at 8am, I dutifully woke him at 8 am yesterday to check and make sure this wasn’t a trend.

Yesterday 6/27/13:

8:15 am- 121 (Good number! You can go back to sleep!)

10:00 am- Kids wake up. Aislin wants to play restaurant. She puts on her pink art smock with pockets. She had a notepad to take Blaine’s order. When I come back down stairs I see a carb fest in progress. Mini-wheats, toast, fruit…. Blaine asks Aislin if she put 21 mini-wheat biscuits in his bowl. She says no. They start all over with a new bowl, as the first was piled high with an undetermined amount and was now soggy with milk. He’s eating away, happy to have his sister serve him. I ask about insulin.

11:20 am- Blaine guesstimated 100 carbs, and did 3 units on his own. I’m glad to see him take imitative so I let him do it on his own. He tells me he got a vein and won’t stop bleeding. It’s a nano-needle. He won’t bleed out. I tell him he’s fine, never thinking about the fact that maybe not all the insulin got in him.

12 pm- He leaves to go play at Ben’s next door.

1:55 pm- He comes home to check his blood sugar. While he is supposed to be washing his hands he instead has his head turned sideways inhaling water from the sink. Polydipsia. This was a word we learned in diabetes boot camp. It means frequent or excessive thirst and is a sign of hyperglycemia.  I braced for a high number. He checks.

436!!! That can’t be right. I immediately pull out another strip while he still has blood on his finger. We check again.

448.

448 is the highest we have seen!! What went wrong?! I remembered what other bloggers had written. Don’t get hung up on the number, it just tells you what to do next. I take a deep breath.

I ask Blaine what he thinks happened (very calmly, as if we were watching a movie and I wanted his thoughts on the plot). He says maybe too much insulin leaked out with the kwik pen.

We do a correcting dose (448-100/80= 4.225). We give him 4 units. I know that this will likely drop him, so I tell him to be aware of an impending low.

3:04- 158, one hour later he has quickly come back to the normal range. We are now at the pool and kids are playing in the water.

3:29- The blasted ice cream truck comes by. The kids buy the overpriced sugary treat with their own money. I’m impressed that Blaine got an ice cream bar with only 14 carbs. For now this is a “free snack for him”.

Kids eat and then go off to swim.

3:43 pm- Blaine does the low stagger from the pool onto the chair next to me. He tells me he feels low. He sits. I wait for him to check his blood. 54. Yikes, we’ve been seeing these 50s every day it seems. I tell him to drink his juice. He sits. He tells me he can’t. Yes, he was feeling so low and he dropped so quickly that he was sitting there in a daze. I quickly get the juice ready and give it to him. About 5 minutes later he’s ready to jump back in the pool. I have him take a glucose tablet as well.

4:11 pm- Boys are tired of swimming and want to go back to the house. I tell them that’s okay as long as Blaine’s numbers are fine. He checks- 81. They take one walkie talkie and I keep one with me. Once home they decide that want to ride bikes.

This is where it gets tricky. Prior to 3/4/13 we would have encouraged Blaine to do just this. Put on a helmet and ride his bike with his friend. Everything is different now with the new normal. I decide that with the walkie talkies I can be in communication, and with Ben there with Blaine he could let me know if something were to happen. It’s called letting go, all over again.

The boys ride bikes. They radio in to tell me they are headed up by my cousin Tres’ house. I say okay. A few minutes later I panic. I can’t get them on the walkie talkies. I fear that they have decided to down this wooded trail that leads to the lake. I try not to panic. I text Ben’s mom to see if maybe they were back at Ben’s. I radio them, over and over. Nothing. What do I do? Grab Aislin from the pool, soaking wet, jump in the car and go to the trail? They know not to do something like that without asking!

Finally, a whole 5 minutes of torture later, I hear Ben’s voice on the walkie talkie. They are headed back home. Sure enough, I see Blaine and Ben, plus our cousin Hugh coming up the hill on bikes by the pool. I breathe a sigh of relief.

The boys go down the basement to play xbox. Aislin and I come home.  She busies herself playing restaurant again with the pink art smock, but this time with three customers. Another carb fest. I walk into the breakfast room and see toast, with cinnamon sugar, graham crackers, and banana with peanut butter. Blaine’s happily sitting with the other boys eating away. Did he check his BG before eating? No. Do we know the carb count? He thinks so.

6:11 pm- Blaine believes he has had 55 carbs so we do 2 units of insulin. What a drag, the other boys are now playing laser tag in the dark basement while Blaine has to go through the steps involved in doing his calculations and insulin. Even though I’m right there helping him, these are just some the minor bumps reminding us that his days are slightly different than his peers.

7:00 pm- The kids are still off playing. We’re out of good dinner options as we didn’t make it to the store. It’s turkey bacon and eggs for dinner or delivery. I order delivery.

8:00 pm- we eat. Blaine is a few bites into his steak and cheese sub. I ask if he checked his BG before eating. No. We are flying in the dark again. He says he feels normal…We correct for the sub with 2 units. I know we will need to check him before bed, but the numbers will likely be slightly elevated because it won’t have been two hours.

9:21- He’s 258, but the insulin hasn’t completely done its job yet. I do his 11 unites of Lantus (long-lasting insulin) and I head to bed.

10 pm- I tell him to sleep tight. Definitely above100 tonight so I’m not worried about him going low.

I'm not sure how different our days will look once his pancreas completely stops producing any insulin. I went to a Type 1 brunch this week and the other mom's assured me that it will actually be easier once he leaves the honeymoon phase. I asked them, then why is it considered a honeymoon? I thought honeymoon was supposed to imply something good. Seems more like chaos to me. I'll do a day in our life 6 months from now for comparison's sake.